Kaos: Dedicated servers for all versions of Homefront “means everything is bigger”

Homefront senior designer Brian Holinka has said dedicated servers for all versions of the shooter will allow the game to support more airstrikes, weapons, and vehicles.

Speaking with Joystiq, Holinka said having dedicated servers for not only PC but consoles as well, helped the firm “offload” some of the work.

“You have to think about your constraints when you’re making a game,” he said. “If we host a server on a console, all of a sudden, that console is both server and it’s playing the game. That really lowers everything: player count, the number of vehicles, everything. Dedicated servers allow us to offload all that work and basically all the client has to worry about is running the game.

“It means everything is bigger — there’s more players, more vehicles, more targets, more airstrikes.”

Dedicated servers allowed the developers to add a 16-versus-16 online mode but beyond that, Kaos said the more players and battles that were added, the less fun it was.

“It just didn’t work,” said Holinka. “We just found it wasn’t fun. It just plays better at 32. If you played a level with 50 or 60 people in there, every time you turn around, you’d get shot.”

Homefront hits PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 March 8 in the US and March 11 in the UK.